William Alexander (1824-1911). Poems. III. Christ on the Shore. Alfred H. Miles, ed. 1907. The Sacred Poets of the Nineteenth Century

Alfred H. Miles, ed. The Sacred Poets of the Nineteenth Century. 1907.

Poems.
III. Christ on the Shore

By William Alexander (1824–1911)


IN the silence of the morning,
Of the morning grey and clouded,
Mist enshrouded,
On the shore of Galilee,
Like a shape upon a column,	5
Sad and solemn
Christ is standing by the sea,
In the silence of the morning.

On the waters cold and misty,
Like a rock, its dark back lifting	10
Through the drifting
Vapours, heaves the fisher’s boat.
Still through grey-fog hood and mantle
That most gentle
Watcher looketh where they float	15
On the waters cold and misty.

Hearts are waiting, eyes are weeping,
Comes a voice, a susurration;
Tribulation
Melteth, melteth like the mist;	20
Yet, like music rich and olden
Hiding golden
Words, that sweet voice hideth Christ
From the hearts that wait, and weep Him.

In another morning silence,	25
When a greyer fog falls dreary
And we weary
With the sea’s beat evermore,
Cometh One, and pale and wounded,
Mist-surrounded,	30
Looketh from another shore
In another morning silence.

Other waters cold and misty
On the wet sands grandly singing,
Bear a swinging	35
Little bark call’d Life by men;
While the bark is swinging slowly,
That most Holy
Watcher looks: light silvers then
On the waters cold and misty.	40

Hearts are waiting, eyes are weeping,
Falls a voice, O sweet but broken!
Falls a token
Light bedimm’d with blinding mist.
Take us where there are no ocean’s	45
Wild commotions;
Where we shall not know, O Christ!
Weary hearts, or tear-wet eyelids.